Have you considered lowering the ceiling? Also think about how your are going to replace burnt out lightbulbs.

I’d not recommend ceilings that high for heating and cooling efficiency, acoustics, and also the practicalities of accessing fixtures to change bulbs.

But one way to make it more manageable is dropped lighting like a chandelier down closer to 12-ish feet from the ground. Sconces around the perimeter and plenty of lamps to layer the lighting would be the most visually pleasing and effective. If you have any bookshelves or moulding as a skirt around the room at the 8-10 foot level you can also add LED strips to get more overall general illumination, along with your lamps for specific task lighting like reading and crafting.

Your heating bill will be atrocious. Hot air rises, so during the Winter, anyone in that room will be cold.

The house might be in Florida and heating bills not a big issue. Maybe it has geothermal and solar and is a net zero energy house. Tall ceilings don't have to mean high heating costs.

That being said, I would never ever encourage high ceilings - at least not that high. We have a 14 ft ceiling - only in the center. And we have a chandelier the is 4 feet wide and its lower edge is about 9 feet.

Don't worry too much about changing LED bulbs. But even we had several trips out from electricians to lower the chandelier after we moved in because they brought the wrong ladders.

20+ feet is done to look grand - and it is a super human scale. It is used in government buildings and churches for a reason. To raise the importance of the institution over the human. Do you want your house to diminish your value as a human? If you are trying to impress, you just might alienate as many people as you impress.

Make your ceilings actually proportionate to the scale of a human being. Not the ego of your architect. Or you’d better own a room dedicated to scaffolding storage, and love a dim huge cave. Because that’s what you have right now.

This is not a task for a home designer or builder. Find an architectural liighting consultant who has experience with lighting monumental spaces. Lam Partners is one I recommend.

Our great room is about that high at its apex (curved ceiling in Florida, heat not an issue) and we have a row of halogen spots across the space, each pointing to different areas below, and a few accentuating the barrel ceiling. We''ve never had to replace the bulbs... yet. We also have floor lamps in places when we don't want the whole space lit up, but the halogens are brilliant when they're on.

https://brucklighting.com/high-line-cable-system.html

Our space feels balanced because half of the space is up a half-level, so the dining room and kitchen are elevated and look out across the great room and out to the view. In no way do I feel small.

Be aware that the lighting we see at Home Depot and on internet sites are from the manufacturers' residential/consumer series. The same manufacturers usually offer two or more higher levels of lighting fixtures for offices and stores.

It used to be easy to specify these fixtures but the manufacturers stopped publishing free catalogs and its difficult to look them up online if you don' already know what you are looking for and they change the fixtures often. I now go to the local electrical supply house and ask to see their catalog.

The new Lightolier Calculite LED "generation 3" fixtures are a good example of what's available.

4" recessed LED lumen and beam spread options:

These things can increase the light output of a typical retrofit 4" downlight by a multiple of 6.

The wall and ceiling colours and sheen, geographical location, local environment, percentage of glazing and the amount of lighting you actually want will all determine how much lighting is enough for you.

Our last home had 10' ceilings. Only when we were showing the home for resale did we turn on the dozens of ceiling pots. Bright ambient lighting is for retail and surgery, as far as we're concerned.

Since a high ceiling don't get much reflected light from the floor they are often dark. Here is a 900 lumen fixture I have used for tall spaces:

True that location and room finish is massively important. I failed to mention that our 20-foot-high room faces east with ocean views, lots of windows facing east with smaller window north and south, white barrel ceiling, white walls and high-gloss white tile. It's usually only lit at night with a single floor-lamp, but we have the cable halogens when we really want to light up the space.

I would include a large hanging fixture instead of can lights. And include a few floor outlets for lamps.

Wow. Thank you for the ones who legitimately tried to help. And wow on the judgement from others. There are so many circumstances that go into the building of every house you are not privy to, so please try to extend grace. I actually did not get to determine my ceiling heights, but they were determined by someone else. I am not trying to figure out how to make sure we have adequate light. For the record, I would have preferred lower ceilings, but people other than me decided for them to be tall. I will be living in this house. I do not own it. If anyone else happens to have a house with high ceilings that has first hand experience I would love your continued comments.

Like I said above, think about lighting in layers. You can do a LOT with sconces, dropped fixtures, and lamps. Especially if you can imbed some flush plugs in the floor in a few spots, so you have options for lamps on side tables and behind sofas in the middle of the space :)

Thank you! That is my goal. My plan for the great room currently is cans, two sconces (one over a door and one over a window---it is an industrial style like I am doing over my garage doors), and a huge chandelier, then of course some lamps.

If you don’t own it, then why are you involved in planning anything for the build? Why would the owners even allow your input? Especially since they want to disregard any good sense on ceiling height? Doesn’t seem like people who let the au pair offer commercial city hall type lighting suggestions.

My living room is about 32ftx32ft and 24ft ceiling. My approach to the light issue are two walls with floor to ceiling windows and four 6ftx6ft skylights (5 layer laminated glass total 2.5 inches thick) that let light through the 5ft deep rooftop pool that sits on top of the room. In addition to this natural light, I use multiple LED spots all over the ceiling and on the walkway that is cantilevered at the 11ft level and runs along two sides. It’s still under construction but I don’t anticipate it being a dim cave. And no, I was not going for cozy or homey LOL.

Joy-

In defense of those who you see as judgmental, I see the voice of experience trying to prevent some design judgments that are less than optimal. You also first talked about the architect of your house and then later said that others are making decisions, not you, and that this is not actually a house you will own, which is confusing. I've been on this forum for a long time and have posted a lot and asked questions a lot. I don't always get the uncritical advice I want, but sometimes I get the advice I need.

We need to see the plans. room direction facing, placement of can lighting, and effectively what would be in the space on a whole. Lighting is in layers always. The style of the house also plays into the choices made.

I'm confused by this statement by the OP: "I am not trying to figure out how to make sure we have adequate light." I think you meant this without the "not", yes? People are trying to help you with suggestions to get adequate light for the space.

For those who seem to really care. Yes, I will be living in this house. No, I will not own this house. No, I did not get to make all of the plans for the house. Yes, I do have input. This house is owned by an institution and it is being built for our family to live in. I get to pick out the lighting, furniture, paint, etc. I did not design it although I had input in the flow of the house. To chicagoans---that was likely a typo. I apologize. I am trying to figure out how to have adequate light. On that note, I called a friend who has similar size ceilings and talked to her about how she has lighted her house and I think I am going to be fine. Thank you to those who tried to help. And for those who seem to be getting me to try to change the house---it is built. They are currently running the electrical. There is no changing the ceilings now. But again, this was not my decision to make anyways.

We have high ceilings, but used cable lights at probably 12 feet for lighting. Also have ceiling fans with light kits

If you plan to use ceiling fans, I'd try to make sure that there aren't any can lights (or any kind of light) above them, to avoid a strobe effect if the lights and fan(s) are on at the same time. That would make me nuts.

I like the suggestions to bring the lighting down to human scale in some way. Not a pro so I don't know if that would mean beams, chandeliers on very long cables, wall or floor lighting at a certain height, or some combination of all of those. I think it would help you to have a lighting designer walk the space with you, because your ambient light / orientation of windows will affect the light as well.

My ceilings are 27+feet in the center. We love them. We have cans and two smaller chandeliers. Changing bulbs will be difficult but after a year living here haven't had to do that yet. Our home is geothermal and our highest bill has been $230. We are in Oklahoma and house is 3000 Sq feet, 2 story

Having trouble posting

chicagoans-

I’m on the same page as you. I have a large living room with a peaked ceiling that starts at 9’ at the edge of the room and goes up to 17’ at the center. There are two halogen can lights and a wired smoke detector near the peak. Fortunately, the halogen lights don’t get a lot of use because of other lighting in the room, so they only needed bulb replacement once in the last several years, but the alarm starts beeping about every three years when the battery needs replacement. Having to get a tall, heavy ladder maneuvered through the house and to the living room so I can stand on top of it is a pain in the rear. I never realized what a horrible design element this was until I had to deal with it.

Next time I have to deal with this I am either removing the two can lights, as they aren’t absolutely necessary, or having them replaced with LED lamps that will hopefully outlive me. And I’m planning to re-route the wiring for the smoke detector so I can reach the ceiling location from an adjacent, second story landing.

For those who are fans of high ceilings, think through your choices on lighting very carefully as you may be regretting them when you’re teetering on top of a very tall ladder trying to remove and replace a balky bulb, or trying to get a battery properly seated inside the innards of a smoke alarm. ;-)

Again, our great room uses just 4 halogen spots, 2 of which can be reached from the upper-level kitchen. It's quite bright - in fact, we rarely use them because they're so bright! Photo taken at 5:45pm, early February. Ocean is to my back.

If you work with a professional lighting company, they do get a $ margin but they make it so much easier because they do it every day. Don't be that person to use their services for free then do it yourself online though

On a high ceiling, multiple 6" cans can be enough but I would do fixtures plus cans. You want to avoid shadowing, and also something 20' up in the air has to be pretty bright to be functional at reading level. I always try to recommend a mixture of fixtures/cans. The fixture can be a focal piece and look pretty, then the cans even out the light and give you the extra lumens if you need them

Also, 100% cans looks sterile to me. It really helps to bite the bullet buying ceiling fixtures, mixing sconces and lamps, etc.